


Follow Your Arrow

by thatfamoushappyending (betsytheoven)



Series: Check, Please! Tumblr Ficlets [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Baby Bitty, Bittle Family Feels, Country Music, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4218510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betsytheoven/pseuds/thatfamoushappyending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bitty actually does likes country music.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow Your Arrow

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the prompt: 
> 
> Headcanon that Bitty actually likes country music, he just prefers pop.
> 
> (Title from Kacey Musgraves' song: Follow Your Arrow)

Here’s the thing: Bitty grew up on country music.   
  
He grew up singing along to whatever country hits were blasting on the radio because his mama was a true country girl at heart and if someone was singing about his truck or his broken heart, she would sing that song for hours while she cooked.   
  
So Bitty grew up with country music playing in the kitchen.

It just seemed to fit: cooking an all-American pie required all-American music, or his mama said it just wouldn’t taste as sweet. Bitty's earliest memories were of sweet summer nights, swinging his hips to the sound of fiddles and acoustic guitars in his family kitchen, his dad swinging his mama around in circles around the kitchen table while little Eric mixed up a batch of brownies for dessert after dinner. 

Country music was the background music to Bitty's childhood. He learned to bake bread to Johnny Cash, and learned the art of the perfect muffin while Patsy Cline sang along. He mastered his first pie crust to the sounds of Dolly Parton, and got ready for his first football game to some classic Gene Autry. He even learned to skate to country music on the radio.  
  
Country was comfort music to Bitty, in a way even Beyoncé could never be. Beyoncé and pop music were more of who Bitty chose to be, while country music was something he could never change because it’s where he came from. But country music never pumped Bitty up before a game, it never inspired Bitty to throw cayenne in his rhubarb, and the words in country songs never reached Bitty’s heart and struck a permanent chord.

Pop music did. 

Bitty listened to pop music as an escape but also as a type of therapy. He got to choose this type of music and there were many times that a line in a song perfectly captured his struggles or his triumphs. He carved these lines into his twitter, into the identity he was carving for himself.

But every once in a while, the music on Pandora or on the radio in Shitty’s car happened to play a country song. Bitty wouldn’t jump up and dance to these songs, but he swayed ever so slightly, felt his heart swell just a bit at the warm and sweet memories associated with country music.   
  
Pop music helped (and continues to help) Bitty figure out where he was going, helped him to find the courage to question what he thought he knew, and helped him to not feel so alone in being something other than what he thought his small town parents expected. Country music helped him figure out that all they wanted him to grow up to be, was happy. 


End file.
